The Radio Dan Blog

Dan and Jessica somehow manage to get veteran sitcom writer and baseball play by play man Ken Levine to come on and share his Hollywood experiences.

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The Radio Dan Show: Guest Ken Levine

Ah Cinematical. How I love thee.

Later this week on The Radio Dan Show, I was planning on talking about the people who post on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m not sure when they started this, but RT now has it that you can post comments to the critical blurbs they put up for movies.

So if you read Earl Dittman saying, “What Happens In Vegas is the funniest movie I’ve seen this millennium!” you can take issue with that and have it be known (Though I don’t think Dittman is allowed on RT).

What makes this amusing and somewhat scary is when you start paying attention to movies that are highly anticipated that have yet to come out, but have garnered some reviews. A few days ago I was looking at the reviews of The Dark Knight for this very reason. At the time TDK was 88% fresh and most of the reviews were raves it seemed. But there were three critics (out of about twenty-eight) who didn’t like TDK. And those three critics were getting it but good in the comments section. Now the fun part is that these folks haven’t even seen TDK but will none the less defend it and verbally crucify those who did. “How dare you not like my sacred cow! You bastards! Who do you think you are anyway? A critic??”

However before I could have this little conversation on Thursday, like I was planning, the fine folks over at Cinematical went ahead and posted this.

Pretty much a post discussing everything I was intending to talk about. Not that it will stop me from doing it on Thursday, but maybe now I seem like some Johnny come lately. Which is okay because no one uses that phrase anyway, so it could use the work.

FYI: Tonight on The Radio Dan Show I will be speaking with Ken Levine, a veteran sitcom writer who has written for MASH, Cheers, Fraiser, Becker, and even two episodes of The Simpsons. He has his own blog you can check out here.  It’s a great blog that’s fun and informative.  And unlike this one, Ken uses spell check.

Jessica finds some DVD commentaries to listen to while at work and then speculates on making her own with Dan. Plus Reality Casting and the box office report.

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The Radio Dan Show: DVD Commentary For The Radio

I love Albert Brooks.  I really do.  Something about his style of humor really works for me.  He’d be my dream guest on The Radio Dan Show.  Only one complaint about the guy.  He doesn’t work enough!

So when I read that he was going to be on the first four episodes of Weeds on Showtime this summer I got excited.  At first I thought he had joined the cast.  But no such luck.  Just an extended guest starring role.  Okay that’s fine.  Now keep in mind I didn’t have Showtime and had only seen Weeds once.

None the less, I was not going to miss out on some Albert Brooks on TV.  So I ordered Showtime, and hey I like Dexter and Californication so I was going to have to order it eventually anyway, right?  Last night was Albert’s last appearance on Weeds.  Now what do I do?

I’ve heard what a great show Weeds is and I certainly don’t doubt these things.  Television is full of great things that I never manage to watch.  Which isn’t to say I’m not watching television.  I’m watching plenty.  Just not good things I suppose.

So this season there has apparently been a major change in the show.  The main storyline about a suburban mom who happens to be a pot dealer was thrown a curveball at the end of last season.  It seems a major fire (you know those California forest fires) torched the whole neighborhood and dear old mom (Mary-Louise Parker) made sure her house burned to the ground by setting her own house on fire.  She does this because the police are on to her.  Or something like that.

So this season picks up with the family which consists of Parker’s mom Nancy, her brother-in-law Andy(dad is dead it seems so this goof hangs around), and her two sons Shane and Silas.  One of which is a pot plant horticulture whiz.  They’re all on the run so they head over Andy’s grandmother’s house near the Mexican border.  Grandma is on life support  and being taken care of by Andy’s father Lenny (Brooks).   Lenny doesn’t want these people around but he puts up with it anyway.

Lenny is a pretty good character.  He has all the things I like.  He’s grouchy, sarcastic, and a degenerate gambler.  Not to mention he wears a pork pie hat.  Something to be said about a guy who wears a hat.

Last night I watched Lenny make his series exit.  He finds Nancy’s drug money (she’s been running this and that over the border while at Lenny’s) and decides to take it and split.  He heads off to Paris for a poker tournament.  Great way to end his story but now that Brooks has left the show, I’m not quite sure if I want to stay too.

This past episode was the best one I’ve seen so far, however there are so many characters that I don’t find myself really caring about.  Starting with Nancy and moving right on down the line.  I’m going to try to hang in.  At least I can say yeah I saw Weeds.  I gave it a shot.  It wasn’t for me.   Maybe it’d work better if I had actually smoked weed at some point in my life.

I do know that Weeds is much better than the other show Showtime is running right now, The Secret Life of a Call Girl.   I’ve seen that twice and it’s not as interesting as the show title.  Hmm, maybe I will cancel Showtime after all.

China is upset over the success of Kung Fu Panda.  Dan and Jess find this fairly amusing.

Click this link to check it out:

The Radio Dan Show: Panda Envy

If you’re going to have a problem with your movie do yourself a favor and have it at the beginning.

See, if you have a movie with a slow first act, first half, first whatever, but kick it into high gear for the ending your audience is more likely to forgive and forget. In fact if they like that ending enough they will make excuses for your boring beginning. “Oh they were just building character.” “It was all just setting up the rest of the movie.” The cinematic cliche’s will roll and you’ll be the benefactor.

That third act is the most important one, especially if you hope to make a big deal, whoopie-doosummer movie. This past weekend I saw two movies that were of the blockbuster nature, both of which has lousy third acts, and both of which I’m going to badmouth in the next few paragraphs. Oh sure, there are worse things than having some blogger rip your movie, but I like to pretend what I think matters.

First up is Wanted, the new Angelina Jolie/James McAvoy actioner. This movie is based on a graphic novel and it shows. At the beginning Wanted reminded me of Fight Cluba bit with McAvoyasan Edward Norton like anonymous cubicle drone just existing through life. This all changes when Ms. Jolie comes a’callin’, changing his life forever.

It seems she’s part of an underground group of assassins who have been keeping the balance of power in the world by killing people. This group is led by Morgan Freeman who gets his order from a magic loom that is connected to fate. The loom spits outs the names of those who should be killed. The assassins then go to work.

McAvoy’s dad was a member of the team until he was killed by another team member who turned rogue. Everyone on the team is some sort of super badass who can bend bullets and jump in slow motion. Apparently this sort of ability in passed on because these people really believe that McAvoy can this too. He just needs training.

Training consists of constant beatings and worse treatment than you’d get at your in-laws. But it’s all okay because at the end of the day you can recover in a magic pool that heals all and covers you like a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. By the way, let me know when this gets ridiculous.

Now the reason they want McAvoy so much is they believe he is the only one who can get his father’s killer. Nevermind all those other badasseswho are just hanging around (like Marc Warren and Common) and essentially doing nothing the whole movie. They need someone who’s never shot a gun before to come in and get the job done.

For me the beginning of this movie was fun. I enjoyed the over the top nature of things and as things flew around in slow motion I was having a good time. I was accepting it all. The beatings. The magic loom. The healing pool. Bending bullets. The whole thing. But then they went too far!

There is a twist in this movie that just derails the whole thing and everything that is ridiculous that you were so busy having fun with, just became…well ridiculous.

First off there is a sequence on a train that involves so many innocent bystanders getting killed that I stopped having fun.  The climax concerns McAvoy killing a bunch of people he doesn’t really have to. Oh sure there’s a bad guy at the end of the trail but all those folks protecting him don’t know what he’s up to. So as our hero shoots seemingly dozens of people I found it impossible to root for him.  In fact I just wanted Wanted to be over.

One last note on Wanted. If you’re going to go ahead and put the awesome Marc Warren (from Hu$tle) in a movie, please give the man something to do. Seeing that he was part of the team was really cool, until I realized he was only going to have about three lines in the damn thing.  What a waste.

On to the next round of disappointment, the new Will Smith blockbuster, Hancock.

Hancock starts out promisingly enough. In fact for the first hour or so it’s really damn good.

It starts out with us meeting Will Smith’s titular character sleeping on a bus bench, looking awful, while a small boy wakes him to up to tell him there are bad guys out there causing a big problem on the freeway. Hancock is more interesting in being drunk than saving the day, which he reluctantly and destructively does.

After saving a PR guy (that’s public relations, not Puerto Rican) played by Jason Bateman, things get ineresting. It seems Bateman has a real interest in Hancock. Wants to change his image. Make people stop hating the guy. Start appreciating him.

This part of the film is genuinely fun and funny. Hancock is pretty surly fellow and really doesn’t seem concerned about people’s opinions of him. Still it would be nice to be cheered rather than jeered so he agrees to the image makeover.

Smith and Bateman have a genuine chemistry and I was really enjoying this film. Until…that damn third act. Well here is it seemed like the second half. Again we’re given a twist and again it completely derails the movie. I’m thinking that since Hancock is an original movie superhero (ie no source material) at some point the filmmakers realized they have a villain problem. Really there is no villain, certainly no one that could stand up to Hancock. So rather than just continue with the unique and funny take on superheroes they had going in the first half of the film, they instead decide to give us a villain and an origin to boot.

We learn about Hancock a little too much. As a boozer who just didn’t care, Hancock was oddly endearing. Once I learned more about who he was and where he was from, he was no longer interesting. The curtain came down on the great and powerful Hancock and behind it was a ridiculous origin tale.

I’m not going to tell you what the twist is but it just may be as silly as a magic loom of fate.

In the end a promising beginning for Hancock ends with the house lights going up and my wife saying, ‘I hated that movie.’ All that good will that was earned in the first hour was killed by the second hour.

So all of you filmmakers and wouldbe filmmakers out there head my words. Make sure you can end strong or don’t bother beginning. Hell, if you have to come up with the ending first and work backwards. It worked for Memento, it can work for you too.

It’s all over between the Star Trek Experience and the Las Vegas Hilton. Dan and Jess don’t seem to mind so much. Plus reviews of Wanted, Hancock and the box office report.

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The Radio Dan Show: Set Phasers to Eviction Notice

Last Thursday (July 3rd) the second episode of The Freelancer should have aired on TalkRadioX.  However the show wasn’t quite ready and rather than rush it on air we decided to hold it back a week.

It’s too bad in a way because I really hope we didn’t lose the small amount of momentum we had with the first one.  Not to mention that your truly actually had a role in this episode dammit.

So hopefully everyone, including you, will join us on Thursday for that episode of The Freelancer.  After all you wouldn’t want to miss my season debut.

Dan and Jessica had never heard of the Black National Anthem but it certainly bothered some people in Denver.

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The Radio Dan Show: The Black National Anthem

Dan and Jess aren’t recommending you show The Shining to your six year old, but they did a call from someone who did just that. Sick!

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The Radio Dan Show: Redrum For Kids!